It would seem that with this logic, a room full of tweeters should put out great bass.

You guys are taking things too literally.

Honestly, I would stay away from 8" "subwoofers" To me, those are larger midrange.

The point being made by the guy was that instead of one massive and powerful sub, 4 smaller subs (real subs) would give better and more even response in the room. A larger sub should go deeper, but if you are sitting in a peak or a null that can be very bad.

It certainly is an impressive midrange if it can reach cleanly down to ~20 Hz. My EP-400s happily do that but for HT it takes more of them to achieve the excessive, overblown SPLs that many people seem to want.

It would seem that with this logic, a room full of tweeters should put out great bass.

You guys are taking things too literally.

Honestly, I would stay away from 8" "subwoofers" To me, those are larger midrange.

The point being made by the guy was that instead of one massive and powerful sub, 4 smaller subs (real subs) would give better and more even response in the room. A larger sub should go deeper, but if you are sitting in a peak or a null that can be very bad.

Ideal situation would be 4 larger subs like the 600s.

Well if I had $10,000 to spend on subs this would be a moot post.DOn't forget I am not trying to fill a large room either 4 EP600 would be going over board for a room this size. ANd if I had $10000 to spend on a sub system I would imagine I'd have another $10,000 in speakers and a AV. and if I spent $20,000 on a system I figure I would probably have enough money I would have a bigger house therefore a much larger room

It would seem that with this logic, a room full of tweeters should put out great bass.

You guys are taking things too literally.

Honestly, I would stay away from 8" "subwoofers" To me, those are larger midrange.

The point being made by the guy was that instead of one massive and powerful sub, 4 smaller subs (real subs) would give better and more even response in the room. A larger sub should go deeper, but if you are sitting in a peak or a null that can be very bad.

Ideal situation would be 4 larger subs like the 600s.

Well if I had $10,000 to spend on subs this would be a moot post.DOn't forget I am not trying to fill a large room either 4 EP600 would be going over board for a room this size. ANd if I had $10000 to spend on a sub system I would imagine I'd have another $10,000 in speakers and a AV. and if I spent $20,000 on a system I figure I would probably have enough money I would have a bigger house therefore a much larger room

My comment about the four EP600 subs was not directed at you. It was for those that make comments about a room full of tweeters (You know who you are, meow ) and the like.

And for some others posting, there is more to it than just SPL. Some people don't care about anything BUT SPL, and that it their personal preference and I am not going to say that what they like is wrong for them. This topic seems to have started by one person's desire for great low bass, and better, more even bass in the room (thus multiple subs vs. some huge 18" monster). I was just trying to offer help, but alas, my "notes and highlights" from a lot of scientific research came across apparently as a bunch of crap or something. I will bow out of this discussion at this point since I clearly out of my mind.

It isn't about max SPL, but being able to reproduce lower frequencies with at the same output level as the upper ones.

Just because you have the same surface area of cones doesn't mean you have the same displacement. Lower frequencies have longer wavelengths, and in order for a driver to be able to create an equal amount of pressure for a lower frequency it needs to push just as hard as it does for a higher one, but move for a longer period of time. That translates into excursion. Larger drivers have larger maximum excursions.

More drivers, placed to interact with more of room will definitely get smoother response throughout the room, but you need to have the same total displacement to create the same sound pressure levels. (See infinite baffles: a large number of smaller drivers, using the total of their smaller excursion to produce very low frequencies.)

Personally, I've gone from one 12" to dual 8s, to purposefully lose the ability to reproduce infrasonics, because I live in an apartment building and the neighbors were complaining. So I moved the tactile frequencies into a device designed just for that, and let the "subs" handle only the lower, audible bass. (Once I get moved into my own place, I want to be able to pressurize the room 5 times a second to levels of 120 dB.)

OK. I couldn't stay away. I just felt unsettled because I wasn't explaining things worth a crap. Let me start over. I am going to somewhat simplify, so be nice people.

4 subwoofers > 2 subwoofers > 1 more powerful subwoofer for more even room response BUT, you may lose some low end depending on what the specs of the subs are.

OK, that should kill off the "room of tweeter people" (Really? Jumped to that extreme.) Whew.

Now, back to the original poster's question, looking at specs for the EP400 and EP500, they are BOTH capable of sub-20Hz sound, so for this discussion (and as I mentioned back a couple of posts about getting deeper bass) the sub count "rule" is very viable. with the 4>2>1 sub, when all subs are capable.

Again, my original notes didn't go smaller than 10" and clearly nowhere near tweeters (sorry, I guess I am bitter).

I wish I could just go back and let you guys just yammer on about it. I honestly tried to bring some other insight and research into this, and for about the 3rd or 4th time I am apologizing again. You guys got cranky about some poorly explained information. Never again. Now you will all have to suffer through my long dissertations on everything instead of the "Cliff's Notes" version. I'm out. Sorry (5th time?) for the confusion. I really am not as stupid about this as you all think I am now.

I fully appreciated all of your significant research, contribution & effort that you put into explaining the ideal requirements of HT setups. You certainly did not come across as unintelligent at all. Sometimes posts that are made to be humorous or tongue-in-cheek don't come across that way.

Where you lost me a little was dismissing little monster subs like the EP-400 (there aren't many 8" subs out there as capable as this unit) as being not up to the task. Having said that, I agree with you that for HT I probably would still choose 2 X EP-500s over 4 X EP-400s just for 'bang for the buck' reasons alone; however I surmise that either model would work just fine for most HT rooms as was proven in the AH article...